


Ersatz

by tamagopants



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Suicide, Two Shot, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamagopants/pseuds/tamagopants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A oneshot turned twoshot about Isa and Lea, and how they got from A to B.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Synchroshatter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Synchroshatter).



> A gift fic to the wonderful Synchroshatter. As requested, a healthy dosage of Isa/Lea, fluff and angst, and a recipe for tragedy in their reasoning for losing their hearts. I had a good time writing this (particularly as Isa is a far stronger character than I tend to perceive him in my other works) - enjoy!

The day before the world ended, Isa was in the tutor's office and Lea, in homespun nonchalance, was pulling apart a laminate sheet detailing emergency procedures. The caretaker was working – a muttering, middle-aged man with perhaps three hairs on his head – and as he trundled past with the vacuum cleaner, Lea outstretched his legs to tap out a song on the dulled cylinder.

The clock read half three. Lea watched the second hand go round, and round, and round until it hurt to blink, until the slam of a door startled him so much that he dropped the laminate card. It landed at Isa's feet.

"She says I'm too impudent for my own good and I need to tone it down." Isa picked up the card and re-pinned it to the notice board outside Ms Penn's office. "Do you tell someone who's good at art to _tone it down_ because it offends other people? Or tell a sportsman to run slower because other people want to come first? No, because rejecting excellence and settling for the group average is hardly what a teacher is employed to teach. More to the point, I merely have a degree of realism I think needs to be shared. That doesn't make me impudent."

"I dunno, Isa, I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe what Ms Penn is trying to say is that you're a bigheaded prick in debate class."

Isa slung his bag over his shoulder. A smile might have graced his face. "Really? _Impudent_? I'm not impudent, I'm vocally assertive."

"Call it what you like, but there's a reason why I'm always on the same side as you during debates, and it's not because I'm your friend." Lea finished off his juice and threw the carton into the plant pot of an indoor fern. "It's because you turn batshit insane when you argue and it scares the life out of me. You know," he continued to muse as they wandered towards the stairs, "if it wasn't so scary, it'd be funny. Your face goes white all over except for your cheeks and you kinda forget to blink—"

"Oh shut up." Isa vented his frustration by giving the vacuum cleaner a kick. It wheezed on impact and, seemingly having a psychic link to it, the caretaker grunted and turned round. "Sorry," he said (although coming from Isa, it sounded more like a scoff).

"Fucking kids," the caretaker uttered.

Lea pushed the door's bar and stepped into the stairwell bathed in afternoon light. "Castle Town?" he suggested. He looked behind him, and he turned in time to see the caretaker lift the vacuum cable – just as Isa was stepping over it.

"Shit!" Isa stumbled – Lea grabbed his arm in time – and then, once he ascertained what had happened, his jaw dropped open. "Wh…What was that for?! I apologised for kicking your damn vacuum cleaner—"

"Isa, leave it—" 

"It's not like I did it any damage, for goodness sake—" 

Lea shook his shoulder. "Isa, get over it. Remember – tone down your impudence." 

Isa collected himself. He straightened his shirt and tie and gave a sharp exhale. "Bastard," he spat.

 

**.oOo.**

 

The next day, when his boiling temper failed to simmer even by a degree, Isa returned with a vengeance. Lea just wondered why anyone would go out their way to trip up a bitterly obstinate teenager with forgiveness issues. 

The vacuum cleaner was out – a perfect repeat of yesterday – and its greyed cable snaked round the corridor's sharp corner. The caretaker was mumbling to himself, swiping down grimy armrests and doorknobs. Every now and then, his aged hands would run over the splintered surfaces of the cabinets as though he was caressing marbled flesh. 

"You ever think," Isa began in a murmur, inching his head round the corner to survey the man, "he's a bit creepy?" 

Lea nodded. "Definitely, he looks like a psycho. Are you really going to have a go at him? He might flip out and stab you." 

"What's your idea then?" 

Lea gave a quick smile. "Just this." He followed the vacuum cable to the plug socket. Then, he bent over and flicked off the switch. He snorted, pleased with his work. From the angled point of the L-shaped corridor, Isa watched the caretaker set down his cleaning rag and go to switch on the vacuum cleaner. He swore under his breath and tried a few more times. 

"And now we walk past him ignorantly." Lea did just that, beckoning Isa along with an audacious wave of his hand. The caretaker glared at them as they passed and Isa, suddenly spurred on in the caretaker's wake, seized the rag and stuffed it up the vacuum's nozzle. 

"Good one!" Lea hissed. He pushed against the heavy door of the fire escape and burst through. Their snickers echoed in the musty stairwell, and Lea waited with baited breath for the caretaker to come back, flick on the vacuum and have it explode in his face— 

—and he couldn't hold his breath any longer. 

"Where's he gone?" asked Lea. He pushed his face against the oblong panel of glass, wanting to see their practical joke in action, but Isa took his sleeve. A shadow had fallen across his face and at first, Lea thought Isa was having second thoughts. However, the more he blinked, the darker his surroundings seemed to get. Lea glanced up and down the stairwell, seeing the school grounds framed by the floor length windows. "I thought we weren't expecting rain 'til Mon—" he started, but Isa cut him off with an ashen look of a glazed statue. "What? What is it?" 

He followed Isa's gaze to the windows again, and then he caught the shadows. Mile-long billows of breathing smoke were creeping across the slabs of pavement, over the low walls, between the fenced trees. At first, Lea thought it was a fire, leeching everything in its path of form and colour; but fire didn't walk, or groan, or have an endless number of curling limbs… 

…did it? 

It looked like something out of his little brother's comic, Lea decided finally. Bordered by the windows, Lea read the animated pages, witnessing the colossal trail of monsters he had never seen before, seeing the world crumble before his eyes. He saw a schoolboy, running with his mouth warped into a voiceless scream, and then the darkness cloaked him, like ink staining paper, and the boy disappeared. 

"It's like a tidal wave," said Isa. "It's sucking everyone in." 

"What's going on," Lea asked, when what he really meant was, _make it stop_. 

Someone started screaming, hollering for help. Lea jumped – it felt like his own voice had clawed out of his throat – and before he knew it, there was pounding against the very door they stood behind. 

"The caretaker," hissed Lea. "It's the caretaker." He tried to look through the panel of glass lodged in the door, but standing three inches taller, Isa had that privilege. Lea watched, numb with horror and maybe fear (was it fear? He wasn't afraid of anything; he loved risks and thrills). 

Isa gave him a single, inscrutable look that terrified Lea to the core, and then his long fingers wrapped round the handle. His shoulder fell against the door. 

"What are you doing?" Lea tugged the handle. "This way's the only way out—he's being chased by monsters—" 

"—and he'll lead them right to us," Isa whispered back. "I told you, it's a tidal wave out there. We're not going to be able to escape once we let the water in." 

Lea's hand hovered near to the handle. His palm was sticky with sweat, yet in the time Lea had taken to fall into a panic, Isa had weighed up the situation and, not for the first time, made a strong decision that reeked of brutal reality. 

"Open up," begged the caretaker. "Open up, I know you're in there! Please, I'm begging you, they're coming—I…oh god—what are you all—" 

"Lea, if you want to live, help me," Isa hissed loudly. His eyes flashed and Lea knew, in that tiny moment, he couldn't deny that he had been given a choice. 

Lea squeezed his eyes shut, gripped the handle and forced his weight against the door. The caretaker – that creepy, spiteful old man whose vacuum cleaner was like his loyal dog – pounded away at the door. 

"I want to live. I want to live." Lea discovered that if he spoke soft enough, quick enough, intense enough, he couldn't hear the throttled cries from the caretaker. "Please, I want to live." 

He held on tight to the handle, gasping every time something thudded against the panel and reverberated through his bones. Hours rolled by (although it may have been mere minutes), until silence washed over, and then Lea collapsed to the floor, scratching at his dirty hands.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Radiant Garden fell into a power outage that even Isa couldn't explain. It was a prospering world that prided itself on technological advancement; it had practically invented the concept of backups and failsafes. However, every house had been greyed out, every streetlight was devoid of warmth. When night threaded into the lingering darkness, all they had was an emergency torch and the glowing hands of Isa's sports watch. 

"How long has it been?" Lea asked. 

"Couple of hours." 

"What happened out there?" 

"I don't know." 

"Is it safe?" 

"I don't know," Isa said again. He checked the time out of habit. Besides themselves, that stupid watch was the only thing Lea could see was still functioning. "…We should find our family. Hopefully, everyone's done the sensible thing and stayed hidden."

"What about if they were out in the open in the first place?" Lea countered. "I mean, my brother would have been walking home." 

"Well, my dad's a fireman. He would've been out there getting everyone else to safety. I imagine that given the nature of his job, I won't see him again." Isa played with the torch, directing it round the unexciting insides of the stairwell. 

After a few minutes, Lea asked, "What about the caretaker? Do you think someone's out there, waiting for him?" 

"No," Isa replied. It was dark, but Lea could still see the trace of fear in his eyes. "He was a freak."

 

**.oOo.**

 

They deemed it safe to leave the fire escape when Lea (and consequently Isa) realised he needed to use the bathroom. Isa went first, directing the torchlight behind him every few seconds so that Lea could see where he was going. They didn't meet anything – man or monster – along the way. 

For a few crazily bizarre seconds, the only sound in Radiant Garden was their piss. Lea wasn't sure if he was even breathing. It was as though the Garden had been switched off without warning. No light or life, no power or pulse. It was empty, as if the Garden was imploding, and everything it had ever touched was being written out of existence. 

"You know, we could always fight those monsters," Lea suggested. "It's not the first time Radiant Garden's seen creatures like those." 

"Although it is the first time she's been floored by them," Isa returned. "Look out there. The whole town's been bleached. Do you think you and your fucking frisbees stand much chance?" He inhaled sharply. "Sorry," he added. "I'm just tense."

 

**.oOo.**

 

Jorn was a boy one year above them, who was renowned for wearing a school jumper that never got acquainted with a washing machine. His front boasted food stains ranging from faint to painfully clear, but Lea had never thought he'd be so happy to see him. 

"I think," Jorn hissed, waving his hands for dramatic emphasis, "there was an emergency evacuation and that's where everyone else has gone. We've been left behind because they never thought to check a closed school. The one day I decided to stay late and finish my art project, eh?" 

"Actually," said Isa, "the moral repercussions of evacuating without consideration for children are colossal. Do you really think our authorities would go against one, their instinct of protecting the young and weak and two, the political interests and benefits of saving as many people as possible? There _was_ no emergency evacuation. If there was one, we would have heard sirens and engines and someone shouting for us to respond. And hey, maybe there would have been emergency procedures, if people weren't too busy getting killed." 

Jorn blinked and stood up, perhaps regretting ever starting a conversation with Isa. "I'm starved," he announced. "Think about it. The whole of school is no longer off limits! I'm going to go to the staff room and raid their fridge. You guys coming?" 

"No," Isa answered flatly, "mainly because I think the monsters are still in the school. If you had any sense, you'd stay here with us and wait it out." 

But Jorn was hungry, and Lea was too (although he didn't dare bring this up). With an ignorant grin, Jorn fitted his arms through his rucksack and walked off to the staff room. 

The hands on Isa's watch turned and turned; and Jorn never came back.

 

**.oOo.**

 

The worst thing was, Lea decided in his fretful sleep, that he couldn't even mourn properly. 

The bodies of Radiant Garden were mysteriously absent. Swallowed, vaporised, utterly consumed. Lea had no idea what had hit the Garden, what creatures could leave nothing but dust in its wake. In the dank air devoid of the stench of blood and rotting corpses, he couldn't work out how to grieve in a situation he understood so little of. 

There was that, and then there was Isa. Lea had let his emotions get the better of him – on several occasions, during their harried walk to a hiding spot, he started crying – but Isa had a face of stone. His only priority was finding a safe spot. He didn't have time to cry – or perhaps he simply didn't know how. 

Lea didn't really know where he was going – the sky was so dark, it was impossible to even see the towering Castle – so he clung onto Isa's jersey with one hand, and gripped the strap of his schoolbag with the other. Isa had thrown his bag aside ages ago, preferring to carry a dust-laden fire extinguisher he had found in the school hallway. Isa had said he was going to thwack any passing monster with it. ("It might not kill them, but it'd make enough noise to stun them and give us a head start.") 

He glowed with common sense and practicality, but Lea couldn't let go of whatever possessions he had left, from his bag full of sweet wrappers and homework to the spare change in his pocket, no matter their worthlessness now. It was childish – with or without Isa's glaring contrast of sensibility – to think that by holding onto all that reminded him of home, like clinging to fraying ropes on a departing ship, it'd relent and stay. 

Eventually, Isa found a safe zone. It was a small bungalow, with a beautifully kempt front lawn and enough roses and hyacinths and petunias to give Lea hay fever for the rest of the year. 

"This isn't home," Lea muttered, drowsy. He followed Isa in through an open bay window, landing on the cushy seat inches below the sill. "All places in Radiant Garden, and you pick a place that isn't home." 

"The view is good from here. We're at the top of a hill. If we get attacked by monsters, we've got momentum to help us get away. Plus, see that black smudge over there? That's the Castle. It's not far away at all. We'll head there in the morning when it's light; I bet everyone's working their way there." Isa smiled, and it was the darkest thing Lea had seen all night. 

"Aren't you scared?" he asked. 

"No." Isa wriggled under the spare blanket he had found. They sat at opposite ends of the window seat, calves and ankles touching. 

"Then are you sad?" 

"No," Isa said again.

Lea shifted in the blanket, trying to disguise his dismay. "…But your family's probably dead. Doesn't that make you sad?" 

Isa didn't reply.

 

**.oOo.**

 

The monsters grew in force overnight. (Lea only assumed it was over the course of night – the sky was as dark as ever.) He jumped wide awake at the sound of the fire extinguisher colliding with metal. 

"See?" Isa smacked another monster with a smile bigger than the resulting bang. "They don't like the noise at all!" 

And Isa may have been triumphant and bold, but Lea was beside himself with fear. The creatures were hideous, with cavernous mouths and spindly fingers. He backed away, crawling on his hands and knees, and then his head rammed into someone's shin. 

"All right, boys, you're okay now." He seized Lea by the collar and pulled him onto his feet. "See that ship? Grab your friend, get in there, _stay_ in there and don't touch anything, ya hear me?" 

"Y-yes Sir—" 

Lea didn't remember much of the journey. The final glimpse he got of his home was the cobbled pavement of an avenue that used to have small birches dotted down it like buttons on a coat. Then, the door slid shut, and despite being locked away and cocooned in a ship with Isa's hand firmly squeezing his, Lea was certain he was suspended in space and falling to pieces.

 

**.oOo.**

 

"Where is this?" demanded Isa. "I don't recognise it. How far did we go?" 

They landed at a refugee camp that was vaguely reminiscent of a town square. (Or was it the other way round?) Tents had been propped up around fenced trees, there was a small queue for water bottles and all around the site, there seemed to be numerous whispers of the darkness. 

Isa shook himself away from Lea and doubled his pace to keep up with Cid Highwind, their pilot and rescuer. "This is Traverse Town," replied Cid. "Some guys and I have been bringing the survivors here. We're quite a way from the Garden – try the other end of the sky – but you're alive and safe, so you got more than you bargained for huh, kid?" 

"This is temporary, isn't it," Isa said. "We recuperate, and then we go back." 

Cid laughed hollowly. "Radiant Garden's gone. Imagine a colossal foot. Now imagine it crashing down on the Garden, sucking life bone dry, sending massive arcs of shockwaves across the universe and her worlds. That's our situation. Ain't no going back unless you've got a death wish. Want someone's lap to sob into? That's the Fairy Godmother's job – she's just down there. Otherwise, make yourself useful and collect these parts for the Gummi ship. The store's straight down that alley – it's got a blue sign as bright as your hair. You—" he snatched Lea's shoulder "—can take this list and put down your names." He fumbled in his back pocket and drew out a crumpled sheet of paper. "Here. It's got everyone who made it out of Radiant Garden and landed here. See if you know anyone and tell the Fairy Godmother if you do." 

Lea was dismayed to discover that not only was his mother and brother missing on the list, said list was frightfully short. His father wasn't on it either. (And even if he _had_ pulled through the end of the world, Lea wasn't sure he'd go out of his way to find him.)

Isa snatched the list, gave it a once over and then shook his head. "I don't know anyone on that list. There's only forty-three people on it. Do you know the population of Radiant Garden? What the embarrassingly tiny percentage _forty-three_ people is?" 

He scribbled on the back of the list, his hand clawing out the deadly calculation. 

"Isa, don't," Lea cried, and he really didn't want to read it, but it was his face to which Isa held out the paper. 

_0.172_

 

**.oOo.**

 

Isa had only ever been an astronomer. He could recite (not without a degree of condescension) the constellations and their locations, the best time and season to see each one; he could trace the sun's path and explain the difference between a nebula and a protostar. He had three telescopes (each with their own pros and cons that Lea never bothered to memorise), a pair of binoculars and two garden tents to make his observations from. 

Two days after the world ended, Isa – from his perspective – made the mistake of looking up.  Without rhyme or reason, he had been stripped of the very sky he had grown up worshipping. 

Save for the perpetual night they were now trapped in, Lea – if he had to be frank – couldn't see a difference in the heavens at all. But by Isa's astounded stare, he knew the stars had exploded out of place. 

Isa, the master of fakery, finally crumbled. He sat on the stone step of their inn-turned-home, and sobbed into his arms for everything he had lost. Lea stood in the doorway, toeing the threshold. He watched Isa rip off his jersey and throw it, only to moan at the lack of satisfaction it brought.

"Thank God," Lea whispered to no one in particular. "Thank God. I thought I had lost him too."


	2. Part II

Isa was still sitting up. He cut a stark, pallid shape against the backdrop of the half-open bay window. There might have been a breeze but Lea, in the absence of Isa's warm serenity, couldn't feel much. The bed was cold and lonely, despite the harried lovemaking it had bore witness to not many fleeting minutes ago. 

Outside, in the perpetual night, the monsters had come back. 

Lea pushed back the covers and with one hand attempting to tame his hair back into the remote semblance of neatness, he said, "Was it all right?" 

Isa had been quieter tonight, near-silent, so gentle and appreciative, more than the papery bond of friends who slept together permitted. Isa had also tried to kiss him. It had been a gradual move, but Isa had changed his mind at the last minute. 

Still, the attempt had been there. Isa had traced the sharp contours of his face – lips and fingers too curious and admiring – and Lea had been thinking, the same way Isa had been thinking – what he was doing and with whom…it might have, for the first time, actually mattered. 

"I had a thought," Isa relented. He stretched, his back a ribbed crescent moon, and he sank into the pillows, wiping the thin layer of sweat off his forehead. 

"Yeah?" 

"It's ersatz." 

As much as Lea liked the look of that pale, shapely back and near-reptilian spine, he didn't appreciate Isa rolling over and away from him. "What is ersatz?" 

"Everything," said Isa. 

Lea folded his arms behind his head, careful not to invade Isa's space. He spoke after a minute, his mind closing on an afterthought. "I don't even know what that word means."

 

**.oOo.**

 

Isa felt like going clubbing. Lea wasn't stupid enough to pass up on the opportunity because the last time Isa had felt like that was more months ago than he could count on his fingers. Isa had never been a good clubber – too serious and too good a catch in the seedy district of Traverse Town – but he had turned round tonight and come up with the suggestion all by himself. 

"Which club?" Lea locked their hotel room door and slipped the key card in the pocket of his shirt. "You sound like you're on a mission. Someone caught your eye?" 

"Nothing like that," said Isa, "I just want to listen to loud music." 

In a world of perpetual night, what its citizens deemed their 'nightlife' was superfluous and embarrassingly contrived. Most clubbers were there simply because there was nothing else to do. After all, in a lonely town rotten to the core with dark skies and a million stars, it was impossible to celebrate the end or the start, because neither existed. And without these markers, over the years, Isa had become paler, less talkative, a ghostly boat looking for a place to moor. Lea wasn't sure how to heal a broken young man who missed home, but he was pretty sure that clubbing, drinking and having the beat smash into one's head – that was only a temporary, destructive solution. 

"I love this song," Isa enthused, when they pushed through the doors and their feet echoed on the metal gangway. Lea was pretty sure neither of them had heard it before. Isa was keen to reach the centre of the club, going down the stairs two at a time. In the over-lighting and thousand voices screaming as one, it was difficult for any clubber to work his way round, but Isa was too easy to find. He was simply where everyone's heads were turned. 

Lea shifted his way through the swaying crowd, sticking close to Isa (like everyone else). Isa had a charm about him that raised eyebrows of men and women alike. He moved as though he was doing everything for the first time, practical and testing, analytical and yet, so so naïve. A swan with the voice of a cygnet; or perhaps a shy ghost trapped in a corporeal, faultless figure. Even in a world that promoted diversity, Isa melded everyone into carbon copies as soon as he set foot in their sights. 

The roulette wheel of music went on and on as Isa partied more than he ever had in months. He tallied an impressive amount of phone numbers and flirtatious messages, and then he pulled Lea for fresh air outside. 

Save for a few haggard smokers, they were the only ones around. "For now," Isa said of it. "Those monsters might be back." 

Traverse Town had its fair share of superstitions. Some made sense – like sticking to a group and letting people know where you were heading. Others were a lot more ambiguous – wearing dark clothes, carrying a reflective object on your person or whispering, "Light, keep me safe," three times into cupped hands. Lea didn't follow these traditions, deeming them the works of a vivid and frightened imagination. From his time at Radiant Garden, he knew that bashing one with a fire extinguisher worked wonders. True, violence didn't kill them, but it offered that crucial chance at running away – and for Isa and Lea, it had only ever been about running. 

"Want one?" One of the smokers held out a packet of cigarettes. Isa shook his head, and leaned back against the graffiti-covered wall of the alley. 

"You look like you're having a good time," Lea remarked. He neglected to add, "For once." 

"I thought it'd be more fun if I put in the effort." 

"And is it?" 

Isa stopped smiling, and finally, the miserable look crawled back out of the woodworks. Lea reached for his shoulder. "Come on, let's go home."

 

**.oOo.**

 

Lea didn't really understand Isa's job, but in essence, he was a computer doctor. Isa looked at people's computers, typed in magical lines of code, hit enter and brought them back to life. It looked dead boring and complicated, but these days, being a computer doctor seemed to be the only thing capable of making Isa…well, _do_ something with himself. 

"Whose brain?" Lea asked. He nodded at the pink laptop, sitting on the sofa and ripping open the lid of an ice cream pot. 

"That lady who runs the photography club. Anne." 

"Again?" Lea folded his arms behind his head. "You ever think she fucks up her laptop on purpose, so that when you fix it, she has a legitimate reason to squeal and hug you?" 

He very nearly got him to smile. Isa was _just_ shy of it. "…Possibly. I'm not interested in her anyway." 

Lea wiped his fingers on his trousers. "Is that what's been bothering you? That out the horde of suitors, you can't find anyone you fancy?" 

Isa shut the laptop. He wandered over to their bedroom door before saying anything. Lea didn't understand the need for distance. Then, Isa leaned against the doorframe, bare feet toeing the carpet, and he said, "Well, you…obviously." 

Lea dropped his spoon. "Er…no, that wasn't obvious." The hairs on his arms stood on end in recognition of the many eggshells he was now treading on. "I thought we'd agreed to only ever be friends." 

"I can't help myself," said Isa, addressing the ceiling. "What would you like me to do?" He sounded half-cross. Lea had been wondering where that arrogant intensity had gone. With a light smile, he flicked his spoon onto their box sized end table and shrugged. 

"Why don't you come over here and kiss me then?"

 

**.oOo.**

 

According to his mother's gushing and exaggerated tale of destiny, Lea met Isa for the first time when their mothers bumped buggies, laughed when their sons both hiccupped at the shock and then introduced them to one another. Lea was a fat baby trying to eat the pompom off Isa's hat; Isa was a drooling infant who enjoyed daubing pictures with his own spit.

At age two, Lea got a toy harmonica, which he used to hit Isa square between the eyes and make him cry. At age four, Isa hugged him for giving back his talking bear and said _I love you_. When they were nine, Isa started a fight and gave Lea a nosebleed. At age eleven, Isa got his braces fitted and in the subsequent dip of unpopularity in school, Lea took it as a chance and proclaimed themselves as best friends. 

Aged twelve, Isa sent Lea a joke love letter. Thirteen, they became lab partners and couldn't agree on who did the experiment and who did the notes. They didn't talk for three days after. At fourteen, Lea's father packed up and left, and Isa stayed behind to pick up the pieces of Lea's broken heart. 

Aged fifteen, they killed a man together. Aged nineteen, they got in a fight so great that Isa screamed for Lea to get out and never come back. Twenty-two, and Lea slept with Isa. 

At twenty-four, they shared their first kiss. 

Now that Lea _really_ thought about it, it had only ever been backwards when it came to Isa.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Secretly, Lea didn't experience much of a difference at all when they crossed the elusive line from friends with benefits to lovers. Their lives simply became just a little more intense, just a little more tightly wound round one another; they had already crossed so many of the bridges – love, in unusual insignificance, was just the finishing touch. 

The change in Isa, however, was radical. 

It was as though the reassurance of them being lovers was the end to all evils. A veil lifted off him. Isa began to smile more, talk more. He began to sing while dissecting hard drives. When he spoke to friends and clients about Lea, his eyes would light up, as though every mention of him was the kick start of a defibrillator. 

Isa was beautiful like this – Lea honestly thought he was – but in truth, it was the nightclub all over again. Lea was the latest song, the newest addition to the shelf, and the novelty soon wore off, and Isa was back in the company of his bone dry fears. Isa's smile, laugh, everything that brought colour to his face and a glow to his eyes – as wonderful as they were, Lea knew they were merely simulations. 

"It's ersatz," said Isa one night, and because Lea had done his homework and looked up the word previously, he knew it was a remark disguised as a plea. His mouth went dry. "This whole world, the life I live and the things I enjoy – it's all fake." 

"People get like that all the time," said Lea. "We're all a bunch of pretenders at the end of the day. We all adjust and fib and act up because we never truly know what we want." 

"But all the time?" said Isa, his voice barely above a whisper. "Where do you draw the line? When do you stop? What happens when you lift up the mask one day and discover there's nothing underneath?" 

"Then you ask someone to tell you what you can't see." Lea slid one leg over Isa's and pushed their lips together. "It's hard, I agree. It's hard to lose home and wind up in a place you can never warm to. But it's not sucking you hollow. You're still you, still the stuck up arsehole too smart for his own good. And," he added, remembering that despite his bravado, he was capable of hesitance, "you've still got me. Would you call me ersatz, a poor substitute for something superior?" 

Isa pursed his lips and not long afterwards, he rearranged his face into a light smile and sat up. "…I didn't mean it like that. Of course you're not a substitute. You're the greatest thing to ever happen to me. No one can replace you." 

And he kissed Lea's forehead and whispered that they go to sleep now, and Lea recoiled into the sheets, because he could feel the lie creeping across his body like a wave of poison.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Isa made it clear: he didn't want to die, he just wanted to go home. 

Apparently, there was a difference.

 

**.oOo.**

 

Isa was sat on the back porch of the hotel with his telescope out. Lea was a little stunned, because that telescope – which Isa had received years ago from an admirer – wouldn't ever be used, not as long as Isa continued to reject the sky above him. But there it was, and there was Isa, mindful of the lurking shadows, careful to make loud noises with his equipment and keep his torch on. 

"Sit here," said Isa, when he spotted Lea. He patted the doorstep. 

"Found something?" 

Isa shook his head. "Not really. I was…I was trying to work out where Radiant Garden may be in relation to here, but with no definite coordinates or markers, it's impossible." 

"It's still out there," said Lea. "Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there." He pushed his lips to the side of Isa's head, but he was met with little response. Isa stayed silent for a few moments – perhaps thinking up more of those destructive thoughts – and then he threaded his fingers into his hair (the surest sign of bother). 

"Anne says they're people," he said, nodding towards the creatures. "It kind of makes sense, when I think about it." 

Lea remembered the dark cloud that smothered the Garden. It didn't require much extrapolation to imagine it engulfing people not to make them disappear, but to spit them back out as a horrid extension of itself. 

"If they _are_ people, then they have everything to do with us." Isa peered through the telescope, but he wasn't really seeing. 

"You think that's your family—" Lea started, but the dark look on Isa's face made it clear he was way off target. 

"Sometimes, I think about him," Isa said. He gripped the length of the telescope, suddenly steering it to point to zenith. "That creepy caretaker. You know, what his name was, if he really was as weird as he looked. Sometimes, I think that if I had done the right thing and focused on saving lives – any life – I would have made it to a better place than here." 

"We're not living out a punishment. And you do know, don't you, that even if you didn't save his life, you saved mine," said Lea, but the compliment fell on deaf ears. In fact, the light buzz and flicker of the nearest neon sign was the only response. 

"If you were dead and able to haunt, wouldn't you go after the two people who might have been able to save you? No matter how long it took, one year, five years, across all worlds – you'd track down the people who'd let you die." Isa shrugged. He began to crack his knuckles absently, and it punctured the warm evening air as a heavy countdown. "So we come full circle," he concluded, eyes locked on the shadows ahead. "He's finally caught up with us, and he's going to repay the favour." 

Lea never voiced his opinion – by then, Isa was long gone, dead and the telescope had never had its cover taken off – but if he had had the courage and the cruelty, he would have said it. He would have told Isa, who so loved to argue and stand his ground, that this was the crucial battle that he had to fight.

 

**.o0o.**

 

Their last day was beautiful – Lea made sure of it. By that point, Isa couldn't set foot out of their hotel room without frantic delusions of fate coming early. 

So, they just waited. 

They were children again, stood by the unlocked hotel door as the dark creatures smelled the odour of defeat. Lea had his hand on the knob, and Isa's fingertips brushed against his own.

Together, they opened the door.


End file.
